Body Love Wellness

And The Winners Are . . .

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. on April 24, 2012

Dudes, you really did amazing jobs creating boards for the Beautiful Body Love Pinterest Contest. I’m so impressed with all of the entries and it was really fun going through them and checking out what you pinned from here and other awesome sites.

As you can imagine, it was really, really hard to pick two winners from all the entries but, well, I did it. These two did amazing jobs.

1st Prize – Amy Finn! Who’s getting a $75 gift certificate to Re/Dress Online, plus a full scholarship to my upcoming online group program, The Big Beautiful Goddess Academy! Check out her entry here: http://pinterest.com/ohhowlucky/body-love-tips/

2nd Prize –Rakisha Kearns-White! Who’s getting a $25 gift certificate to Re/Dress Online. Check out her entry here: http://pinterest.com/bklynshoebabe/body-love-tips/

Thanks to everyone who entered! I hope to do more of these contests soon!

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Eating A Salad & Dreaming of a Cheeseburger #WhatsWithLadyGaga

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. on April 23, 2012

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I don’t really follow Lady Gaga, but one of my lovely readers sent me a link to one of her recent tweets, and it bummed me out. The tweet read:

“Just killed back to back spin classes. Eating a salad dreaming of a cheeseburger #PopSingersDontEat #IWasBornThisWay”

Lady Gaga (image via wikipedia)

I’m going to do something that goes against my better judgement here, which is to parse the meaning and significance of a tweet. If this is not your thing, please feel free to check out my blog and read some non-Twitter-related post.

Okay. You’re still with me? Let’s do this.

“Killing Back To Back Spin Classes”
I’m not going to touch this part, except to say that when you work out in an intense way, you need eat adequately. #justsaying

“Eating A Salad Dreaming of a Cheeseburger”
Of course, I’m taking this to mean that she was eating a salad while dreaming of a cheeseburger, as opposed to eating some strangely sentient salad capable of dreaming about eating other food products.

But in all seriousness, this is typical dieter and disordered eater thinking. Lady Gaga is definitely putting her diet rules about what she should eat above any possibility that she might be craving a cheeseburger for good reason. Maybe she needs more calories or more protein or just a reminder of home. She has a huge net worth and any number of assistants to cater to her whims and yet a cheeseburger is beyond her grasp? It’s so sad that a tastemaker like Gaga can’t allow herself tastes of the food that she wants. #eatthedamncake

What's her salad dreaming of? (image courtesy of The Hairpin)

“#PopSingersDontEat”
Just this February, Adele won 6 Grammy’s. She’s sold a gazillion records and has become an extremely famous pop star. I figure that she’s around a size 12/14 US which makes her epically fat by young pop star standards and just barely plus sized by real life standards. And Adele has publicly made such “shocking” statements as “I love food and hate exercise.”

This tweet came on the heels of an alleged feud between Gaga and fellow pop star Adele, wherein Gaga was supposedly going around calling Adele a “fat cow” due to her envy over Adele’s award sweep at the Grammy’s. (I had seen this reported in some fairly reputable places, but apparently the original story is from the ever disreputable Star magazine, and is probably untrue.) But still, what did Lady Gaga mean when she tweeted “#PopSingersDontEat”? Am I the only one who saw this as a dig against Adele? #whattheactualf

Born This Way Album Cover (image via wikipedia)

“#IWasBornThisWay”
This part, to me, puts the bummer icing on the tragic cake. Isn’t the concept behind the song “Born This Way” that we should all embrace and enjoy who we are, even if it makes us different or not accepted by mainstream culture? Gaga and her mom even founded the Born This Way Foundation, whose mission is, in part, “to foster a more accepting society, where differences are embraced and individuality is celebrated.” This seems like a wonderful cause.

So is Gaga saying that she was born to be fatter than she is now? And if so, why not just accept that she’s born that way? I realize that she probably feels required to stay thin to retain her pop star status, but maybe that’s not really true anymore. (See Adele above.) Gaga always seems to have incredibly devoted fans, some of whom have probably used the “born this way” concept to embrace having fatter bodies, so why not Lady Gaga herself? #sobebornthisway

One Last Thing
I realize that when Lady Gaga tweeted this (if it was even she who did so) she was probably hungry and in a bad mood and looking for some diet commiseration from her twitter followers. She probably wasn’t thinking about the fact that it might be considered to be promoting anorexia. I realize that she’s a human being who has her own issues and is under tremendous scrutiny and pressure. But I also think that it would be a truly amazing and powerful thing if she embraced body acceptance as part of the “born this way” cause.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Join her for her upcoming FREE TELECLASS: “The Goddess Path To Healing From Food And Body Image Issues” on Thursday, April 26th at 8PM Eastern/5PM Pacific. Click here for details and to register.

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Samantha Brick & The Beauty Myth

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. on April 16, 2012

Listen to this post here, or subscribe on itunes.

This week’s post is a little short because I broke my darn wrist and the combo of typing with one hand and potentially nodding out from percoset is making blog writing a highly undesirable activity.

But I just had to weigh in on the Samantha Brick story from a bit of a different perspective.

Samantha Brick (courtesy of the Daily Mail)

If you haven’t heard of Samantha Brick yet, you are a lucky, lucky person and I feel really bad about potentially ruining your day. Ms. Brick recently wrote a bizarre article for the Daily Mail in which she shared why being attractive is really so terribly awful. To summarize, you get a lot of free stuff from dudes but women hate your guts for it. As you can imagine, much Internet ire was raised by this supposition, so she issued another article about what she termed a “witch hunt.”

Even though I can’t quite figure out why Ms. Brick chose to write these pieces, I feel like she’s articulating a worldview that we’re all sold everyday. If we’re to believe the media, the most important thing for a woman is to retain the male gaze for as long as possible so that we can acquire wealth, baubles, status, and more male interest. And because there’s only so much male gaze to go around, we’re going to have to fight other women for it, hence, not so pretty women are supposed to hate the pretty ones for taking up more precious male interest.

Of course, this belief is deeply patriarchal, but it’s also deeply antithetical to divine feminine principles, particularly the principle of abundance. When you connect with the principle of abundance, you begin to see the beauty in everyone. That feeling of scarcity lessens, and you connect with the feelings of hope and possibility. And you understand that the struggle is not for something seen as scarce, like male interest or whatever. The struggle is bringing more of the divine feminine back into our lives so that we see the true nature of our abundant selves.

In other, potentially less fluffy words, feeling beautiful and attractive is totally wonderful, but assuming that you’re one of the few lucky ones and everyone hates you for it is just b.s.

Okay, the percoset is seriously setting in. Luckily, we can talk about divine feminine principles a lot more in my upcoming free teleclass, where I will explain this all more clearly.

Be a part of our Beautiful Body Love Pinterest Contest! Click here for details.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get her NEW free gift — Golda’s Top 5 Tips For Loving The Body You Have Right Now!

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HAPPENING TODAY–The Goddess Path To Healing From Food And Body Image Issues (FREE TELECLASS)

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. on April 10, 2012

What is it that you truly desire?

That’s not a question you get asked often, is it? And really, it’s a damn shame.

As women, we’re constantly trying to fit ourselves into someone else’s idea of what we should be. We obsess over food to try to be thinner and obsess over our bodies because we’re not “supposed to be” this size. We’re too loud, or too quiet, too bossy or too permissive, too sexy or not sexy enough, too much or not enough.

We keep trying to win a game that has us set up to lose.

But there is another way to live in our society and stop playing that game. It takes courage, but I know that you have it to spare. It means connecting with your divine feminine essence, so that you can know, in your heart of hearts, that who you are, how you look and the way you take up space is not only perfect just as it is, it is needed in the world.

In this 60-minute teleclass, Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. (founder of Body Love Wellness and leading authority on Health At Every Size) will share her top techniques for connecting with your divine feminine essence in order to begin to heal from the pain and shame of body hatred and disordered eating. These are the same ones she shares with her private coaching clients.

You’ll walk away from this body love centered call with Golda’s surprisingly powerful, yet simple techniques for connecting with your divine feminine essence in order to really make peace with food and your body.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

The biggest mistake that women make in trying to heal from food and body image issues
Why it’s dangerous to ignore the divine feminine within you
Easy ways to start loving parts of your body that you dislike now
Top tips reconnect with your intuition
How to eat like a goddess and change your relationship with food for good.
And so much more!

Golda Poretsky, HHC Body Love Coach

Whether you’re a student of the divine feminine or not, you’ll get at least 3 BIG insights into how connecting with the divine feminine can heal your relationship with food and your body for good!

Note: Everyone who registers will receive a link to listen to the recording of the class, so you should still register if you can’t make it live!

Just enter your info in the boxes below, and you’ll receive the complete call details via email.

Yes, Golda, please sign me up for this exciting FREE 60-Minute Teleclass on “The Goddess Path To Healing From Food And Body Image Issues” on Thursday, April 26th at 8PM Eastern/5PM Pacific.

Send me the details at my email address below.

Please note, upon registration, you will also receive a complimentary subscription to the Body Love Wellness Newsletter. We will not share, rent or sell your information to any other organization.

Please check your spam folder if you don’t receive a confirmation email.

*I realize that the terms “masculine” and “feminine” may be problematic. I’m using these terms to describe a duality of guiding principles for how people look at the world. In no way do I mean that all men are one way and all women another, or that they should be one way or another. Anyone who identifies as a woman is welcome on the call.

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The “I Did It, So You Can Too!” Phenomenon

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. on April 9, 2012

Listen to this post here, or subscribe on itunes.

If there’s one meme that makes me particularly nuts about weight loss gurus, it’s this one:

Yes. I'm sure having two slim parents and millions of dollars has nothing to do with your physique. (Image from pinterest.)

“I lost weight, so you can too!”

This concept is so ludicrous, but we all believe it. In a weird way, it makes sense to us. We think, here is a fellow human who is thin and/or lost weight. I’m a human, so it should work for me too!

But we forget that being human may be where the similarities end between us.

Here are some things to consider:

1) Genetics — About 70% of weight variation is based on genetics. ^[1]In other words, fatness is incredibly hereditary. If no matter what you do, you still have your mom’s thighs or your dad’s double chin, that’s because genes have a huge effect on relative fatness, and where it shows up on our bodies.

2) Circumstances — This should be pretty obvious too, but people lead really different lives, with varying obligations, stress levels, health concerns, work schedules, access to food, access to workout equipment, access to sunlight, etc. And these circumstances all play a huge role in how one’s body might respond to whatever “plan” is being pushed on it.

3) Metabolism/Bodily Differences — People’s bodies are really different. The calories in/ calories out model that is so cheerfully touted is not based on reality. People’s metabolisms, their ability to lose weight, gain weight, gain muscle, etc. is all highly individualized.

4) All Weight Is Not Created Equal — People lose weight and gain weight for a lot of different reasons, and sometimes even they don’t know why. Some folks who obsess about losing their “baby weight” may have lost it anyway because they’re genetically predisposed to do so. A lot of us know that guy who lost a few pounds after he stopped drinking soda, but that doesn’t mean that will happen for someone else. And the “stopped drinking soda guy” may have drunk more soda in a day than you do in a month. Sometimes following Health At Every Size principles results in weight loss for some folks, and it may result in weight gain for others. And it’s hard to predict what will happen to whom.

5) The “I Did It” Folks Are Outliers — Only about 5% of folks who lose weight actually keep it off past the 5 year mark, and usually they didn’t lose all that much weight to start. The huge, vast majority of people who lose weight gain it all back, often plus more, within 3-5 years. So these “I did it!” folks usually fall into 1 of 4 categories (a) statistical anomaly, (b) still in the honeymoon phase before hitting the dreaded 3 year mark, (c) didn’t lose much to begin with, and (d) totally lying.

Basically, everyone is really different. Remember this the next time you start to fall for the “I Did It, So You Can Too” Phenomenon!

Be a part of our Beautiful Body Love Pinterest Contest! Click here for details.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get her NEW free gift — Golda’s Top 5 Tips For Loving The Body You Have Right Now!